IT'S May 1st - and a cold and frosty morning. The hour bell of Magdalen College tolls six. From it, the choristers, high up on the tower take an A. Below, a hush falls on the crowd. Then the boy soprano voices soar:
Te deum Patrem colimus
Te laudibus prosequimur
Qui corpus cibo reficis
Coelesti mentem gratia.
Another May Morning in Oxford has begun. On Magdalen Bridge, young women in flimsies cling to young men in disarray. Below the bridge, couples in punts littered with champagne bottles lie exhausted in each other's arms, for they have been up - how shall I put it - celebrating, since well before dawn. A whole pig's head is spiked on the paling opposite Magdalen College, and from the branch of a nearby tree hangs a single silk stocking.
Look, let's not beat about the bush - even the May bush. May Day - the feast of Bealtaine - is all about a bit of the other. Fertility, if you prefer. So that if you thought your childhood May altar was about the Virgin Mary (I did), you may need to think again.
Further, if you thought that Here We Go Gathering Nuts In May is a children's song (I did) then you really need to think again. Powerful institutions like the Catholic church and the Communist Party have tried to take over the feast, encompassing it, giving it a veneer of respectability, making it theirs, but despite their efforts the equation remains: to Baal, the Phoenician god of fertility, add the potent Irish fire (tine) and you get Bealtine, a serendipitous coming together which your pagan Celt - always one for a bit of fun was well suited to celebrating.
The irony is, however, that if you want to mark the feast in all its unbridled licence, you have to leave this Europe's last bastion of Celtic culture - and travel to Oxford. But be warned: it means an early start, for from 5 a.m. onwards people start converging on Magdalen. By six, the bridge is packed solid this being one of the few occasions when town and gown stand shoulder to shoulder, though not without comment.
"I'm an Oxonian," a man told me, "not like these foreign students who only come here for three years." "Foreign," in this context, being anyone not from Oxford.
TRAFFIC is barred for the duration, pubs open their doors to sell mulled wine, the Jesus Jazz Band belts it out on the steps of the Examination Schools. A string quartet plays under the Bridge of Sighs, and over by the Bodleian Library a Morris side leap and stamp, while their jester, Jack in the Green, decked out in twigs and leaves, whacks unfortunate bystanders with his pig's bladder. A group of women clog dancers the Corn Dollies - perform to a tune the refrain of which is ". . . so we'll all go a-nuttin' in the early mornin' dew." A policeman watches them thoughtfully, a flower stuck in his helmet. All this and it's still only 7 a.m.!
There was a time when the pubs weren't open - and anyone up and about early on a May morning will know how chilly that can be. Being acquainted with the barman of the Eastgate Hotel, I tapped on the window during the revels one year, only to be turned away: "I can't let you in," he whispered, "I've got the whole of the Thames Valley Police in here ... having breakfast," he had the grace to add.
Sun worship, as any druid will tell you, has been with us a long time. Holman Hunt's famous painting of May Morning includes a Parsee whose presence there signifies such worship. Magdalen College's involvement in the celebration dates back, some say, to Cardinal Wolsey, the Boy Bachelor, who in 1490 at the age of 15 became a graduate of Magdalen. Other sources relate it to the completion in 1507 of the magnificent 145 foot tower, while others put the date at around 1700.
Michael Strut, head porter at Magdalen, likes to relate the history of the tower: "It took 17 years to build originally, at a cost of £500. But to restore it, in the mid 1970s, cost £1 million and we used eight and a half miles of scaffolding." His task, on May Morning, is to get the crowd quiet for the singing of the Hymnus Eucharisticus: "The pubs open generally about 4 a.m. the police turn a blind eye - and it means everyone's merry." Some so merry, in fact, that they leap into the river from the bridge. "The Tower just before 6 a.m.," he recounts, "we ascend the Tower - the President, the University Marshall, myself and invited guests. There's only room for 40, and 20 of those are choristers. When the bells are pealing, the tower sways slightly so there's always a few visitors who want to come down in a hurry."
By 8.30 it's all over. The pavements are littered with fast food polystyrene boxes, the streets are becoming clogged with buses again and lectures start at nine. Stop anyone and ask them about Bealtaine and they'll think you're a nutcase. May Morning? They just do it because they've always done it. Which, after all, is as good a reason as any.
This year, there'll be one Celt at least up in the Great Tower me. And if the tower sways, I'll put it down to the earth moving.